Right Here
by yestermeyesteryou
Summary: Blaine is on a quest to lose his virginity before graduation, and Sam has no idea why it bothers him much more than it should.
1. Since when

___Disclaimer__: The author of this piece does not, in any way, profit from the story and all creative rights to the characters from Glee belong to their original creators._

_Hello everyone! So, new story. Basically, Blaine never went to Dalton and sadly Kurt doesn't exist... I love him but I just can't write him! Enjoy!_

* * *

"Dude, wait up!"

Blaine turned around upon hearing the sound of Sam's voice echoing down the hall to see the taller teen half-jogging towards him. "Hey."

"What are you doing tonight?"

Shrugging in response, Blaine made an attempt at pretending not to have any significant plans for the evening. "I really, really have to study, so…"

Sam waved a hand in front of his face as if to gesture that none of the words Blaine had just said were of any importance. "There's an X-Men marathon going on downtown, it's gonna be all night and it's gonna be epic!"

"I wish I could Sam, but I've got to stay in this weekend. " He offered a crooked smile and tried to ignore the almost ignorable tug on his heart upon seeing the disappointed look on his friend's face. However, he did seem to be off the hook. "Sorry. Next time, Ok?"

And just when Blaine was about to turn around and keep walking towards his locker, he spotted something going on somewhere behind Sam's eyes.

"Since when do you need to study on a Friday night, I'm pretty sure you have an A in like… _All _of the subjects."

"Uhm…" Blaine nodded his head in agreement with the other teen. "I know, but you know how my dad is, so…-"

"-Blaine." Sam gave him a quizzical look and shook his head in confusion. "What's going on? It's X-Men."

"I have to see my doctor, Ok? Can we drop this now." 'My doctor.' Also known as 'The perfect excuse.'

However, Blaine's sudden confession only seemed to make the other boy even more puzzled. "On a Friday night?"

It was now Blaine's turn to seem downright confused as he tried to put on a self-assured front. "Late afternoon."

"Just spit it out, dude." Sam seemed to be losing his patience. "What's going on?"

Blaine just stood there for a moment, mouth half open while contemplating on some sort of exit strategy. Eventually, however, he decided he had to start talking. "I'm going to Scandals."

This time Sam made a face in response, almost as if he was put off by what he had just heard. "Alone?"

Taking a deep breath, Blaine turned around to keep walking down the hall with Sam's staggering figure just two steps behind him. "Yes."

The taller teen remained silent until they had finally reached their lockers. "Why?"

Shaking his head at the question, Blaine raised an eyebrow at Sam as he worked on getting his locker open, keeping his voice low. "Why do you think people go to gay bars, Sam?"

Crossing his arms over his chest, Sam ignored the question. "How the hell would you get into Scandals?"

Blaine shoved a book into his locker, stern expression on his face. "I have a fake ID."

"From?"

"Sebastian."

And the very second the name fell from his lips, Blaine squeezed his eyes shut knowing that this conversation was far from over. In comparison to what was coming it probably hadn't even begun.

The huff of laughter Sam had just let out was humorless. "You are not going alone. And if you were, it's not like you can't freakin' give yourself a rain check." Sam nodded to himself as if he had just cracked the case wide open, a knowing look looming on his face. "You're going with Sebastian."

Sebastian, also known as the nemesis of basically his entire group of friends. The person who had tried to blackmail one of their closest friends by threatening to release photoshopped pictures of her boyfriend online; the boy who had spent almost an entire year trying to coax Blaine into not only joining the ranks of the exclusive private school he attended, but to be with _him_. And to whom, after time and time again showing little to no interest in Sebastian's pursuits, Blaine had to pay for it by almost losing an eye in what supposedly had been a 'practical joke' gone bad.

Their relationship was complicated, to say the least.

"Since when do you two even talk?!"

And the look on Sam's face was enough to make Blaine wish that he was a better liar. "Do you have any idea how few other out, gay guys there are around here?"

"Blaine…" Sam reached out to grab Blaine's hand and pulled it towards him, seemingly unaware of the other boy's eyes widening to the size of dinner plates at the gesture. "If that's what it's about, _I'll_ go with you. Because I am a good friend, and I'm pretty sure that Sebastian guy is a sociopath..."

"Sam…"

"I mean, I probably won't _talk_ to anyone but I'll hang out, drink a couple of beers by the jukebox or something and you can do your thing or whatever."

Sam kept rambling on as Blaine pulled his hand back against his own chest, trying hard not to let it show just how moved he was, all the while knowing things never were just that simple. " Sam..! It's Ok."

Sighing in defeat, Sam let his backpack roll of his shoulder and dropped it to the floor. "I don't think it's Ok." Eventually, some sort of realization seemed to dawn on the taller boy's face. "Wait, are you two…?"

"No!" The insinuation made Blaine feel a deep red flush creep up his collar, even if he knew that it couldn't be further from the truth. "But even if we were, I really don't think it's of anyone else's business."

"I'm just looking out for you."

"Don't you get it, Sam?" Slamming his locker shut just a little bit harder than necessary, Blaine wasn't even trying to keep his voice down any longer. "I have never been with anybody. Ever."

"I…" For probably the thousandth time that day, Sam looked at him with a blank innocence of confusion. "I know that, Blaine."

Blaine laughed sarcastically, casting his eyes towards the floor. "Oh, so you know that…"

"Well." Seemingly out of respect for him Sam was, however, speaking softer than he had at any other point during their roller coaster of a conversation so far. "As your best friend, I assume you would, you know, tell me. But I don't understand what that has to do with anything?"

"It's not exactly by choice, Sam." And if there was one thing that made Blaine feel so uncomfortable he'd literally crawl out of his skin if he could, it was talking about this kind of stuff with his best friend. "I just think, if I put myself out there maybe I'll, you know…. Meet someone."

Sam looked down for a moment, and if Blaine didn't have a hunch of just how much their friendship meant to both of them he'd think the other boy almost seemed a little jealous. "I think you're looking in the wrong place, Blaine."

"Then just exactly where would you suggest I look?"

The question was met with a silence so still, it dawned on both of them that they were the last two students in the corridor.

"Didn't think so." Blaine hung his bag over his shoulder and brought a hand up to gently bump against Sam's upper arm. "See you Monday. Ok?"

It was with a heavy heart that Sam watched his best friend walk down the hall, to eventually disappear behind a corner.

"See you Monday."

And it was because of _this scenario right here_, Blaine thought to himself as he pushed open the heavy doors to the high school and started walking towards the parking lot, why there are so few realistic depictions of gay guys and their straight, best friends on TV.

_**TBC**_


	2. Tiny, little

It was barely noticeable.

But just a tiny little inch above the collar, there seemed to be puffy, tiny little bruise. Sam stole a marker out of Blaine's pencil case and diverted his eyes back to his notebook. "Had fun this weekend?"

"Hmm?" Blaine looked over at him from where he was sitting on the chair right next to his, rubbing a hand absentmindedly over the patch of skin on his neck that Sam literally had to try not to stare at. "Yeah. It was fun. How was X-Men?"

"Cool. I took Brittany." Putting the apparently empty marker back into the case, he grabbed another one.

"Good." Blaine, ignoring the pang of jealousy somewhere in his chest, retrieved the marker that had just been put back and put it to the side as a note to himself to throw it away later.

"I mean, she was sleeping throughout the whole thing but it was cool." Sam cleared his throat in an attempt to quell the stream of words he could feel building up somewhere in there without much success. "So did you have any luck or what?"

"What?" Shooting him an innocent glance for about half a second before focusing his attention back on his work sheet, the nervous laughter hinted that he knew exactly what Sam was referring to. "No. No, no. Nothing like that."

Sam nodded. "Ok." He leaned a little closer, because even though he currently didn't seem to have the ability to filter anything he was saying, at least he wanted to make sure the conversation stayed between just the two of them. "But that's an awful lot of 'No's for such big hickey."

And suddenly the perpetrating patch of skin was barely noticeable any longer, because within two seconds Blaine's neck had turned to exact same shade of that angry, blushing red color. Still, that didn't keep him from pulling the collar of his shirt up to successfully hide it, just in case his skin would ever return back to normal. "I…-"

"-Fell onto a running vacuum cleaner?"

Blaine let out a sigh of relief at Sam's comment, completely oblivious to how hard it actually was for him to seem unfazed. "A completely cool, respectful vacuum cleaner. That only wanted to fool around a little bit." Bringing up his hand to pinch his thumb and index finger, he pressed them together as tight as he could in order to demonstrate. "Like, a tiny little bit."

And even though it probably shouldn't, the information seemed to make Sam's furiously beating heart calm down a tiny, little bit.

* * *

"_What's your name, kid?"_

_Blaine turned around to look at the tall, dark and handsome stranger who until that moment had been eyeing him from across the bar for the last 20 minutes. Scanning his mind for a mental photocopy of the fake ID in his pocket, he tried to recall the name haphazardly printed on the cheap looking plastic card. "I'm Paul."_

"_Hi, I'm Thomas." The 30-something eyed him curiously for a second before he spoke again. "How old are you?"_

"_21." Blaine probably answered the question a little too quick not to seem suspicious. _

_But suspicious or not, '21' seemed to be all the conformation Thomas found necessary before reaching out to suggestively stroke a warm hand up and down Blaine's arm. "Want to dance?"_

_Eyeing the dance floor for at least a hint of where Sebastian might have gone, Blaine spotted the sleeve of a familiar looking shirt-clad arm holding on tightly around some guy's back in a dark corner by a jukebox. "Yeah."_

_It was nice. _

_The beat of the music, the three beers and two tequila shots rushing through his veins. From somewhere in that dark, far away corner Blaine could make out Sebastian giving him a thumbs up, prompting him to shoot a ridiculous smile in his direction before feeling two heavy hands grab onto his hips, pulling him close. The music seemed to slow down while hungry eyes looked for his in the dark, eventually almost involuntarily letting them be found. Two lips came closer._

"_Come with me."_

_The space on the dance floor that up until a moment ago had been preoccupied by two bodies quickly filled up by other warm hands and hungry eyes._

_Somewhere, deep in a dark corner by a jukebox, a pair of shoulders shrugged._

* * *

Blaine looked down at his still full plate on the tray in front of him, trying to pay attention the robot related conversation going on between Artie and Sam. He wasn't really hungry.

"Blaine, I don't mean to offend you or anything by I've been wondering all day." Brittany waved a fork in front of his face as she spoke through a full mouth. "Are you, or are you not a vampire?"

The absurdity of the question quickly caught his attention. "What?"

"Or will you turn into one at midnight? You've clearly been bitten by something."

"Dammit…" Blaine muttered under his breath and pulled up his collar as Sam shot him a careful, sideways glance before he threw an arm around Brittany in an attempt to change the topic.

"Hey, babe. Want to hit the movies tonight?"

The conversation sort of faded out as Blaine looked back onto his plate because he didn't want to think about how annoying he found it when Sam called Brittany 'babe', eventually forcing himself to swallow half of a potato wedge.

For the rest of the day, he made sure to keep his collar firmly buttoned up.

* * *

_The toilet floor was sticky from the stains of spilled, sugary drinks, covered in at least three torn condom wrappers desperately clinging onto the cheap, floor bound tiles. Blaine had counted to four wrappers before finding himself with his back pressed against the wall of a bathroom stall, that pair of lips desperately sucking on his neck._

_Paul, 21 years old from Austin, Texas was having the time of his life. He loved sweaty hands groping at the front of his jeans, taking the regular break to sloppily shove a thumb or index finger into his mouth when it wasn't occupied by an equally sloppy mouth. The pressure of a palm pressing down on the top of his head, accompanied by a needy "Come on…" was enough of a hint to bring him down to his knees, trying to quell the wave of disgust flowing through his body as his knees carefully landed on top of the questionable floor. Paul helped shaky hands open up the zipper in front of him with a pair of equally shaky ones, taking a deep breath through his nose before closing his eyes and opening his mouth._

_Eventually, he let out a satisfied moan upon finishing what he'd gotten down on the floor to do in the first place, shortly finding himself swapping positions with the handsome stranger. Paul quickly realized that he enjoyed giving almost as much as he loved receiving as he leaned back against the wall, panting while trying to catch his breath under the flickering light bulb above, barely hanging on by a thread._

_At some point the sound of zippers going up echoed between the thin walls, and soon he was left alone._

_Blaine, 17 years old from Lima, Ohio, felt that wave that initially had flown through his body as a reaction to the floor once again, landing on his knees for the second time that night._

_Except this time, it was in front of the toilet bowl._

_It was probably the tequila and the beer, Blaine told himself as he flushed the toilet before wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He didn't know for how long he'd been sitting there with his eyes closed when he felt two hands on his shoulders, dragging him up back onto his feet and pulling him out into the crisp, autumn night._

"_Let's get you home, killer."_

_Before Sebastian had a chance to buckle his friend into the passenger seat, Blaine used his last bout of energy to push the taller teen aside, leaning out the door to throw up on the asphalt of the parking lot._

_It was probably the tequila and the beer, he told himself again as he finally leaned back into the seat, feeling the pressure of a seatbelt safely strap him down._

_Or maybe, just maybe, it was because of something else._

_**TBC**_


	3. Usually

It was a late Saturday night.

Too late.

Sam sat hunched over his history book by the small desk in his room because unlike Blaine, he actually _needed_ to stay in some weekends to study. Only usually, Blaine would be sitting right next to him, explaining concepts, equations or timelines and whatever it was that Sam had fallen behind on during the week. And Sam would listen, because for some reason Blaine could explain things way more engagingly than any teacher ever could.

Brittany had suggested she could come over so they could study together, or something. Before Sam had even had time to finish muttering 'Isn't that just the blind leading the blind?' under his breath, Santana had sent her a text saying she was in town this weekend and so Sam found himself alone with his textbook and two empty cans of Redbull.

He was just about to call it a night when the buzzing sound of his phone went off somewhere beneath the layers of sheets of paper scattered around the desk. Finding it just before it was probably about to stop ringing, he caught a glance at the caller ID. Blaine.

"Hey buddy. What's up?"

"_Hey… Sam, right?"_

That wasn't Blaine's voice. "Um. Yeah?"

"_It's Sebastian. Look, you don't happen to be sober by any chance, do you?"_

Sebastian… Sam glanced over at his third, freshly opened and until this moment ago considered abandoned can of Redbull. "I am, actually. Dude, what's going on? Where's Blaine?"

"_He's right here. Look, I was supposed to drive but you know how things tend to get when you're having too much fun. So, I thought I'd do the responsible thing and call the only person we could think of who probably wasn't wasted out of their mind right now."_

Sam rubbed a shaky hand over his tired face. "How responsible of you…"

"_I mean, it's not like we won't find a bed to sleep in tonight if it's too much trouble-"_

"-Fine, fine. I'm coming."

"_Thanks, I owe you. We're at Scandals."_

Sam hung up the phone, turning on his swivel chair towards the desk to grab his nearly full energy drink and managing to gulp in down in one go. "Damn right you owe me…" He muttered under his breath before reaching into his drawer to get the keys to his car.

He couldn't really pinpoint just what feeling it was that he felt towards Blaine in that moment, but whatever it was it felt an eerie lot like anger.

* * *

"He's on his way." Sebastian hung up the phone and walked over to the teen sitting with his face in his hands by the curb, sitting down next to him. "Although I have to say, he didn't seem super excited about it."

Blaine hung his head for another second before looking up. "I told you not to call him."

"Do you want to get home or not? Because I am completely fine staying here all night."

Blaine said nothing.

"Because maybe if you weren't acting like such a cocktease to juiced-up gym freaks in the toilet stalls we wouldn't be in such a rush to get out of here."

Throwing his arms open wide, the shorter teen couldn't hide the exasperation in his voice even if he tried. "I'm not going to lose my virginity pressed against the wall of a dirty bathroom stall at Scandals!"

"But what you need to know, young grasshopper, is that the last people you want to piss off are the closeted guys on steroids. So much pent up aggression, which can be great in some situations, don't get me wrong." Sebastian shrugged and leaned back a little on the curb. "Other times, nah. Not so great…" When Blaine said nothing once again, the taller teen leaned closer, expression just a little more serious than a moment ago when he spoke, softly. "Did anything…?-"

"-No. I just want to leave."

Putting his head back into hands, Blaine wondered why he couldn't just be more like Sebastian. _Or any other guy_, he thought to himself as recollections of how classmates' sexscapades traveled through the halls faster than fire came to his mind. Although, the difference was probably that most guys were getting blow jobs from girls their own age while Blaine was secretly entertaining some very questionable statutory action. He never felt quite as young as his meager, 17 years as when trying gather enough courage to decline 40 year-olds whispering things like '_You're a really pretty boy' _and _'Let me fuck you…'_

* * *

"_I don't know…" The man looked much older under the familiar flickering of the light bulb. There were tattoos decorating his upper and lower arms that Blaine hadn't seen on the dance floor._

"_Come on…"_

"_I can… touch you?"_

"_Shh…" The man's hands crawled down the front of Blaine's jeans, disarming him with the simple pop of the button on his fly._

_Just say no, Blaine thought to himself as he reluctantly let himself turn around to face the wall. You just need to say no._

_When the heavy hands started dragging his jeans down his hips, Blaine quickly reacted by hooking his fingers into the belt loops, keeping them up._

"_I think I'm going to go home."_

_Eventually the hands stopped half-attempting to fight Blaine's iron hold onto his jeans, and the man took a step back. Too nervous to turn around, Blaine squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath until a flat hand slammed against the wall just a couple of inches from his head with a nerve shattering sound, to eventually reach for the door handle and exit the stall. The second the man had gone, Blaine quickly turned around to lock the door and finally, he allowed himself to exhale. He probably waited a good ten minutes before exiting the restroom, partly because that's how long it took him to collect his breath but mostly because that was how much time he needed to finally get his shaky hands to close the damn button on his fly. _

"_We're leaving." He grabbed onto the back of Sebastian's sweater, who in turn reacted by turning around on the barstool and was just about to object before he duly noted the look on Blaine's face._

"_Right, killer. Let's go."_

* * *

"Look. If it isn't our white knight in shining armor."

Blaine knew exactly who Sebastian was referring to as he heard heavy steps approach them, eventually coming to a halt. Blaine raised his head to look up at Sam without really looking him in the eye. From what he could make out from his expression, Sam seemed pretty pissed although for some reason it also seemed to quickly fade as the blond teen appeared to be avoiding his eyes just as much as Blaine was.

"You two ready to leave or what?"

Sometimes obnoxious jerk, always self-proclaimed true friend of Blaine's Sebastian stood up and reached down a hand to help Blaine get to his feet. The cold air almost punched him in the chest as he scrambled to his feet, only realizing just how intoxicated he probably was once they started walking towards Sam's car. In an attempt to remain neither seen nor heard, Blaine jumped into the backseat and stared at his feet, eventually coming to realize that he'd probably never sat in the backseat of Sam's car before. Usually he'd sit next to his friend.

Usually, both of them singing on top of their lungs to cheesy 80's rock.

Sebastian was about to jump into the seat next to Blaine when he felt someone grab onto a handful of his sweater from the back for the second time that night.

"You're sitting in the front, I need directions."

Once all three were seated, Sebastian pulled out his phone and started texting someone. "You can just drop us off by the Dalton dorms."

"Blaine is staying at my house." For the first time that night, Sam's eyes found Blaine's in the rearview mirror, the expression on Blaine's face almost resembling shock. "I need him to help me with my history homework tomorrow."

"Alright, fine." Sebastian shoved the phone back into his pocket. "You can drop _me_ off at the Dalton dorms…"

None of them had spoken much for the rest of the ride, and the short drive home after Sebastian had been dropped off was almost completely silent.

Back in Sam's room, Sam made an attempt at tidying his desk up and tossing the empty cans into the garbage before diving through his closet to find something for Blaine to sleep in, eventually tossing him a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and disappearing into the bathroom.

When he came back, Blaine was laying on his bed facing the wall with a cover safely tucked around him. Sam crawled in next to him on the, unfortunately for two practically full-grown young men, small bed. He reached to turn off the light on the nightstand next to him, leaving the room almost completely dark and laid on his back looking into the ceiling, even though he could barely see any of it. The shaky, uneven breath of the person lying next to him didn't go unnoticed. Turning on his side, Sam threw an arm around Blaine and scooted just a little closer, before finally shutting his eyes and focusing on breathing heavily in an attempt for Blaine to maybe do the same.

That night, Blaine fell asleep pretending not to cry, while Sam pretended not to notice.

_**TBC**_


	4. Like you and me

_Just want to give a little thank you shout-out to all the lovely reviews and reviewers. You are the reason why I write in the first place, much love!_

* * *

It wasn't the first time they'd fallen asleep inevitably tangled up in each other's limbs in a recurring fight for a fair share of the duvet on top of Sam's bed.

It was, however, the first time Sam had woken up with his breath stuck in his throat due to the devastating realization that an arm thrown around Blaine's waist, which also wasn't exactly a new development, at some point had turned into him being the big spoon. The big spoon, with a morning situation.

As carefully as possible, he slowly lifted his arm and scooted back on the bed as far as he could without falling down on the floor. He raised his head from the pillow in an attempt to make out whether or not Blaine seemed to be sleeping, reclining back once he'd decided that the heavy breathing from the other side of the bed suggested that the other teen was still deep in his sleep.

A shower was probably a good idea.

When Blaine stretched out his arms in a yawn as he slowly came back to the world of the living, he looked around the room for a hint of where Sam might have gone before grabbing Sam's hoodie hanging over the back of a chair and dragging his feet across the floor and down the stairs, assuming he was already having breakfast.

"Blaine! I didn't know you spent the night." Sam's mom turned around, spatula in hand as she stood in the kitchen in front of the stove flipping pancakes with a bright smile on her face. "Sam was supposed to study…"

Caught a little off guard, Blaine laughed nervously and brought a hand up to run his fingers through his hair in an attempt to smooth down the curls that inevitably had broken free during the night. "He did, I just came over. To help." Raising an eyebrow, he looked around the kitchen and peeked into the dining room, still no sign of Sam if you discredited his eerily similar younger siblings. "Is Sam here?"

"I think he's in the shower. Take a seat, I'll make you a plate."

Blaine nodded absentmindedly as he sat down on a stool by the kitchen island, the mention of a shower making him all the more self-conscious of the fact that he was probably in dire need of one for himself. By the look of it, Sam's mom seemed to be in agreement as she sat down a stack of pancakes in front of him, accompanied by a tall glass of orange juice.

"You might want to stay away from open flames with that breath, by the way." She said it with a smile as she jokingly moved the scented candle further away from where Blaine was seated by the kitchen island, and if he hadn't felt too embarrassed to look at her as he chewed down a fork-full of syrup coated pancakes perhaps he would have seen the hint of concern in her eyes. Discreetly he pulled down the sleeve of Sam's oversized hoodie down his wrist to hide the stamp from the club, assuming underage barhopping might not be taken as lightly as what she probably assumed had been a couple of drinks at a party.

Finally Sam stepped into the kitchen, almost running over to his mom's side to see what she was preparing on the stove. "Ah sweet, pancakes." He grabbed a plate and made himself an unhealthily tall stack before pulling up a stool and sitting down next to Blaine, taking a sip out of Blaine's glass of juice in between mouthfuls of pancakes.

"Son, just a friendly word of advice for when you sneak out to party." The look Mrs. Evans face turned a little more serious as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Just because one of you is the designated driver, it doesn't mean that the other one has to drink for both of you." She pointed the spatula in Blaine's direction, and if he could feel any worse about the whole situation than he already did, this was probably when that would happen.

He expected Sam to loudly explain that he had just picked up his drunk friend from the curb last night like the good friend he was, but instead he slapped Blaine's back a little harder than necessary without looking up, eyes seemingly preoccupied with watching the knob of butter melt on top of his pancakes. "Noted, mother."

She kept a lingering, watchful eye on the both of them for a moment before turning around to prepare a fresh pitcher of orange juice and bringing it out to the dining room, where apparently Sam's younger siblings had run out.

To his surprise, but mostly due to courtesy Blaine had actually finished his entire plate. When Sam turned to him, fork pointing in his direction as Sam chewed down his last bite, Blaine realized that the two hadn't exchanged a single word throughout the whole morning, or the night before.

"You-" He'd started speaking with his mouth still full, grabbing the glass to wash it down with the last drops of juice. "-are going to read the history textbook to me while I lay on the bed eating Oreos. Now."

Standing up and grabbing something out of the cupboard, which Blaine assumed was a box of Oreo cookies, Sam looked over at him with a little smile and a blink-and-you'd-miss-it wink of an eye, and Blaine had to smile to himself in relief as the tall teen disappeared up the stairs.

Because thank god, his best friend in the whole world at least didn't seem pissed.

* * *

Blaine instinctively brought his hand up in the air and caught the filling-free side of a cookie before it would crash into Sam's computer screen. "I don't understand why you keep buying these if you only eat the cream part." He flipped through the pages of the book in front of him and popped the cookie into his mouth.

"Because I don't like the rest. Besides, it works out perfectly because you only eat the cookie part."

Turning on the swivel chair to face his friend lounging on the bed, Blaine crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll have you know that I actually enjoy intact Oreos, with the cream and everything. There's just, you know, never any left after you've licked your way through a whole box."

Sam innocently held up an Oreo in his hand. "Want one? It's the last one."

Contemplating the offer for a second, Blaine eventually smiled and shook his head. "Nah. Share?"

Nodding almost impatiently, Sam split the cookie in two and scooped the cream up with a long index finger to put it his mouth, closing his eyes as he slowly pulled it out through those ridiculously soft-looking lips.

Swallowing hard, Blaine tore his eyes off of his friend's borderline intimate moment with the creamy filling just in time before Sam opened his eyes, tossing the remaining halves at Blaine. Somewhere in the room, a phone buzzed.

"Ah…"

Blaine looked over at Sam, who seemed busy texting away on his phone.

"Brittany is coming over."

Before correcting the tone of his voice, Blaine raised an eyebrow at his friend. "Why?"

Sam didn't seem to notice the slight hint of irritation in Blaine's voice as he stared at the message on his phone. "Apparently Santana was just being her coldhearted self, and then she went back to Kentucky. So she's a little down."

Taking a deep breath through his nose, Blaine looked out of the window. "What are you and Brittany doing, anyway?"

"What do you mean?" If Blaine wasn't preoccupied with staring at the cold branches of the tree proudly standing on the lawn of the garden outside, he would have seen the face Sam just made. "She and Santana aren't exclusive. Besides, we're friends." Tentatively trying to peak over Blaine's shoulder at whatever it was that he was looking at outside, he continued. "Like you and me."

"Right…" Blaine snorted, shaking his head and looking down at his feet before glancing over his shoulder at his friend on the bed. "Like you and me."

Sam shrugged, and Blaine reached for his own phone on the desk to text Sebastian, asking if he could pick him up after getting his car from the club where they had left it last night.

Half an hour later, the two walked down the stairs and made their way through the front door just in time to see Brittany walking across the driveway, determined steps setting her path towards them. She managed a little wave in Blaine's general direction before throwing her arms open and around Sam's shoulders, teary eyes pressing against the soft fabric of his T-shirt.

Sam looked apologetically at his friend. "Damn, you need a ride right?" He looked at him in confusion when Blaine shook his head, just about to say something when the loud honk of a car horn disturbed the otherwise peaceful suburban street. Over Blaine's shoulder, he saw Sebastian tapping impatient fingers out the window against the car door of his shiny, black Lexus.

"Wrap it up, ladies. I'm in a desperate need of copious amounts of Lima Bean espresso." Sebastian pushed the shades on his nose down a notch to look over the rim, and even with the tired, dark circles under his eyes he always managed to look ridiculously put together.

Blaine waved back, signaling that he'd be over in a minute before turning back to Sam, who no longer had Brittany's arms hanging around his neck. She stood to the side, wiping her eyes.

The taller teen bit down on his tongue, because in that moment he had no idea what he might say if he were to let his words run free. Instead he reached over, bringing Blaine in for a quick hug before he watched his friend walk over the car waiting for him.

When Blaine looked over the roof of the car before getting in, Sam hoped he was far away enough not to notice the heavy heart beating through the thin fabric of his tearstained T-shirt.

_**TBC**_


	5. Understood

It had happened at some point during the last couple of weeks.

Something had shifted.

Sam had known Blaine was gay since the first day they met three years ago, and they had been best friends for the last two. But until now, he had never really thought about the sexual orientation of his best friend, because Blaine had always just sort of been there, sexless and sharing almost all of Sam's interests. He never talked about guys, never went on dates. As a matter of fact, throughout the years they'd known each other Sam could only recount two instances when Blaine's sexuality had even been brought to his attention.

There was that thing that happened at his old school; the reason why he had transferred to McKinley in the first place. Something about a dance, Blaine going with another boy who also happened to be gay and a group of kids who seemed to have made it their mission to make Blaine's life miserable. He'd gotten that faraway look in his eyes when he talked about it, so Sam hadn't asked any further questions because he assumed that Blaine didn't really want to talk about it, and Sam tried his best to understand.

Then there was that time when they had been hanging out in Blaine's room after school, flipping through Blaine's vintage comic book collection when Sam had gotten up from the bed and walked over to the desk to check his email. It had taken Blaine about three seconds to react, jumping off the bed and darting towards the power button on his laptop but by the time he'd pushed it, Sam had already deactivated the screensaver and gotten a pretty vivid picture of your average, gay porn site.

"_Oh…"_

Blaine hadn't said anything. Instead, he'd awkwardly walked backwards and sat down on the bed, putting his hands on his lap while his face turned into an almost scary shade of white. Eventually, Sam had just hung his head and laughed, turning his head towards his mortified friend.

"_So can I use your computer or not?"_

Blaine had nodded, and Sam turned the laptop back on. Within a couple of minutes he'd joined Blaine back on the bed, snatching the seemingly intriguing comic book out of his friend's hand prompting Blaine to give him a look, before grabbing another one for himself. And just like that, things returned to normal.

But now, Blaine wasn't just the sweater vest wearing, comic book loving boy who'd asked him if he wanted to go to the Marvel Comics exhibition with him on that perfect day two years ago. All of a sudden, Blaine was a three-dimensional young man with depth, feelings and urges that Sam never had paid attention to before. Sam had gone on plenty of dates, fooled around with girls and even slept with a couple. Afterwards Blaine would ask how the date went, and he'd say 'good' before grabbing his friend's arm to drag him down the hall and outside to his car, to kidnap Blaine so that they could go to his place and watch Avengers for the thousandth time.

There was a reason why Blaine had turned as red as the fiery, sinful gates of hell when Sam had inquired about the hickey, and that was because he had never had one before. And just like that, Blaine was a boy who apparently turned up at school bearing the evidence of a pretty intense make-out session on a Monday morning and, for reasons Sam couldn't quite understand, that changed everything.

Then there was Brittany. Sweet, lovely Brittany, who managed to make everything feel right sometimes but at the same time was one of the greatest sources of confusion in his life. Brittany who loved him, but who also loved a girl with raven hair black as night and a smile brighter than the day.

She said Santana had explained everything perfectly one day, but Sam hadn't really understood exactly what the question was to begin with.

"_You love"_ she had told her.

"_You love so much. You have much more love than most people._

_Probably too much for this world."_

* * *

"Doesn't it get awkward?"

Blaine peeked over the magazine at Sebastian, who was sitting in an awfully loungy chair opposite of him while sipping on the largest take-away cup the Lima Bean had to offer. "What?" He put down the magazine.

"Being in love with your allegedly straight, best friend?" Sebastian had a smug look on his face, finally taking the shades off his face even though they'd been sitting indoors for the last 45 minutes. "I mean, he is straight, right? That hair always throws me…"

Blaine shook his head, quickly returning to his magazine. "Yes."

"Yes, what?"

Taking a deep breath through his nose, he absentmindedly flipped through the pages until he found an article he pretended to read. "Yes, he's straight."

Nodding satisfyingly, Sebastian leaned back on the chair. "So, it does get awkward."

Instead of answering the question, Blaine stared at the words on the page in front of him with a convincing dedication.

It took him about seven minutes before he realized he'd been reading an article on how to perfect a smoky-eye using liquid eyeliner and a quality, coal-tinted shadow.

* * *

It had been sort of weird this time.

First of all, Sam couldn't really focus because for some reason he'd kept thinking of pretty much every single thing in the world except for what Brittany and he were doing right in that moment.

It probably hadn't helped that she'd started sobbing uncontrollably afterwards.

"Where's my top…" Pale, freckled arms dug around the sheets and pillows for something to put on, eventually digging out the T-shirt Blaine had borrowed to sleep in the night before.

"Wait… that needs to go into the laundry." Sam quickly snatched it out of her hands and put it on the back of his chair, looking around the room before spotting her top lying in a pile along with her jeans by the foot of the bed. He scooped them up and handed them to her, before disappearing into the bathroom to take his second shower that day. When he came back to his room, she was fully dressed.

"I think I'm going to go home. It's late"

Sam walked up to her, bringing her in for a soft hug. "Ok." He didn't feel the need to object.

"See you in school tomorrow?"

He nodded, brushing a blonde strand of hair out of her eyes. "See you tomorrow." If asked why, he probably wouldn't be able to explain why he held his breath until she'd left the room and he'd heard the sound of her pink leather ballerinas tap down the stairs. If questioned how come his first response was to lock the door and turn off the lights upon hearing the familiar, faint sound of the front door to the house shutting in the distance, he probably wouldn't have an answer either.

And if somebody would have asked why he grabbed the T-shirt hanging on the back of his chair to crawl into bed and under the covers, scrunching the washed out fabric into a little ball and holding it close to his face as he breathed in the almost nonexistent smell of Blaine's warm chest, he wouldn't have a clue of what to say. He wouldn't know what to say, because he didn't really understand.

A strangled noise shook the stillness of the room, prompting Sam to sit up for a second to look where it had come from before realizing it had escaped from his own throat, the evidence clear as day on the T-shirt in his hands in the form if tiny, wet little stains from tears almost visible in the darkness of the room.

Lying back down on the pillow, he brought it to his nose one more time to take a deep breath before shutting his eyes tightly, holding the bundled up fabric against his chest and focused on taking deep, steady breaths.

In the blink of an eyelid somewhere in between a dream and another dream, it dawned on him that the answer to all of those questions might lie somewhere in a bunch of words he'd heard one day, but had never quite understood.

"_You love so much. You have much more love than most people._

_Probably too much for this world."_

_**TBC**_


	6. Kidding themselves

_A little note to clear up any possible confusion!:_

_Sam and Brittany are sort of very good friends with benefits and Sam knows that her heart belongs to Santana. He is starting to realize that they might seek comfort in each other because they both want someone else that they can't really have._

_The whole thing about Santana saying that Brittany "loves too much" is about how Brittany is bi, and therefore has the 'potential' to love people regardless of gender. According to Santana, she loves more than most people, "too much for this world". Sort of a warning that a lot of people in life won't really understand her. _

_Sam thinking that the same words could apply to him deal with him realizing, but not necessarily coming to terms with, his own sexuality. _

_Now on with the next chapter!_

* * *

"Does it get awkward?"

Sam quirked an eyebrow, tearing his eyes away from the comic book in his hands to look over at Blaine who was sitting in the comfy chair in front of him in the school library. Sam was supposed to be working on his math homework, and Blaine was supposed to be helping him. Over the dark haired boy's shoulder, he could see Brittany beaming in an aisle of books about computer science while texting on her phone.

10 minutes earlier, she had announced to him that they needed to cancel their plans for the weekend, because Santana wanted her to visit her in Kentucky. The indifference with which Sam had shrugged in reply to the information could very possibly have come across as hurt.

"Does what get awkward?"

Blaine shrugged nonchalantly, looking over his shoulder to steal a glance at the blonde cheerleader a couple of feet behind him. "Being in love with your best friend?"

Before Sam's entire world came crashing down in a sea of hopeless tears and the deepest shame he'd probably ever let himself feel, Blaine pressed his lips together in a stiff, straight line as Sam counted the seconds before he could breathe, waiting for the other boy to speak again.

"She's obviously in love with someone else."

"What?" Sam shook his head, blinking a couple of times as he involuntarily stared Blaine straight into the eyes in search of some sort of answer to the question that had just seconds before rolled off his tongue.

"Brittany. She's obviously in love with Santana."

"Oh…" He wondered just how red his face had turned. "She's not my best friend."

"Ok." Another shrug.

"You are."

If Sam knew Blaine as well as he did, he knew his friend wasn't one to laugh sarcastically at the type of information that he very well should already know by now.

But it sounded a lot like he did.

"And I'm not in love with her."

"Alright. Good for you."

Feeling the burning flush in his cheeks subside, Sam took a moment to think about what Blaine had just said. "What's that supposed to mean?"

This time, Blaine didn't even look up from the comic resting in his hands. "It's supposed to mean that it's good for you. Because she couldn't love you back. Because she's gay."

"No she's not."

And there was another one of those awfully sarcastic sounding laughs.

"She's not gay. Dude, I've slept with her."

Blaine shot him a glance, a look of pity in his face. "Bisexuals are just kidding themselves, it's like a safety zone while tip-toing out of the closet. _I _was bi at one point. And so was Boy George…"

"What the hell are you talking about? Of course bisexuality exists."

"Whoa, relax." Frowning at the suddenly worked up teen in front of him, Blaine set the comic down in his lap and brought his hands up in surrender. "Since when are you an advocate for non-hetero sexual orientations?" He thought about backhanded comments in the corridors, about Sam's warm hand, patting him on the back. About 'Don't worry about them's and 'They're losers anyway's.

About how the taller boy had never ever really come to his defense.

Nostrils on the borderline to flaring, Sam decided to hold his breath before inhaling sharply in order to collect his nerves. "Perhaps since non-straight supposed allies run around with statements as absurd as yours." Collecting his untouched math notes scattered around the table between them, he shoved the comic and folders into his bag and got up, heading for the cafeteria.

After lunch, as he stacked the books from his first couple of classes into his locker, Sam realized that at no point during the conversation in the library had he actually refuted being in love with his best friend.

* * *

Blaine couldn't care less about if bisexuality was a thing or not. On second thought, he was pretty positive it was because who was he to make assumptions about something he had never felt or experienced.

What he did care about, however, was trying to convince himself that Sam could never love him, because people didn't just wake up one day and decide that gender was a social construct and that Blaine was lovely and amazing even though he didn't have boobs and long, wavy hair all the way down to there.

And then there was also that eerie hunch that Brittany was using Sam, and maybe it wasn't so much a problem about Sam being used as much as it was a problem about him being anything to anyone else other than Blaine. If Blaine could convince Sam that she'd never really want him, maybe he would give up and the two of them could go back to spending every Saturday watching reruns of cheesy sitcoms on his bed.

Or, quite possibly as the evidence would like to suggest, Blaine was simply losing his mind.

And he could live with never getting what he wanted, truly needed and what he from the bottom of his heart honestly thought he deserved if the only other option was to not have Sam in any way at all. He could live with that because he loved Sam, and sometimes letting someone go completely was worse than having them so dangerously close and painfully far at the same time.

Sometimes, love was funny that way.

Funny.

Because even though Blaine spent the majority of his time telling himself about all of these things he could live with, sometimes he just felt like he couldn't even live at all.

* * *

He had been reading some stuff online. It seemed like a sensible idea after realizing that a week had passed, and he still hadn't put the balled up t-shirt hiding under his pillow into the hamper of dirty laundry.

But if he technically could just sort if be with _anyone_, couldn't he just choose to be with those he chose to be with. If he had so many options, why did it just make everything so much more confusing. He hadn't felt anything other than Blaine's radiating humiliation that one time when he'd first been exposed to about five seconds of gay porn, and the second time he tried he'd mostly felt terrified and a little uneasy in his stomach as a result of a recent little experiment involving his laptop and a box of tissues.

None of it explained how come every time he closed his eyes, he thought of hugging him really, really tight. Of holding him close, and watch him fall asleep. Of stroking his head and press his lips against his forehead, maybe even leaving a soft little kiss.

Of how fast his own heart would race, when he thought of Blaine kissing someone else. Someone else's hands pulling the shirt off his body, skimming over his chest to grab and to pull.

To lick and to suck. To claim, and to corrupt

He wondered if it had already happened. If Blaine had slept with anyone yet. He wasn't even really sure how that were to go down, because he had closed his browser long before the two well-endowed men on his computer screen had come close to actual fucking.

But he had an idea.

Sam closed his eyes tight, as if to shut out anything other than the ever-present darkness in his bedroom making light of his most deepest thoughts and fears.

And then, he thought of hugging Blaine. Of hugging him really, really tight, holding him close and watch him fall asleep.

Of pressing his lips against his forehead and to, on top of soft, sleepy skin leave a soft, little kiss.

_**TBC**_


	7. Here before

He had been here before.

With the other boy's back pressed flush against his almost devastatingly aching chest, groin throbbing somewhere in the space between his own body and the curve of Blaine's backside.

He stopped breathing in an attempt to make out if Blaine was awake or not, not being able to make out anything over his furiously beating heart.

Cursing himself for having thrown an arm around his waist at some point during the last two hours, he slowly tried to lift it but ended up leaving it there upon the movement prompting a barely there, terrifying stir from the other person on the bed

He wondered how he had ended up here.

* * *

"_Is Brittany coming?"_

_Sam looked over at Blaine, holding a six-pack of beer on the porch to their friend's house._

_The night was young._

"_No. She's in Kentucky this weekend, remember?"_

_The shorter teen nodded, a barely noticeable look of relief on his face. "Ok. You know, I'm sorry about that stuff I said about her, right?"_

_Sam huffed in response, shaking his head. "Dude, don't sweat it."_

* * *

Leaving the arm on his waist hadn't really had the desired effect he had hoped for.

When he held his breath again, he could have sworn the swoosh of air from batted lashes almost deafened his ears, no matter how loud his heart might have been pounding. The gulp of a throat shook the walls of his bedroom, and amidst his confusion he wasn't sure from which one of them it had come.

Blaine was moving now. Hips grinding slowly, if barely at all.

He closed his eyes, letting his arm take on a life of its own as it reached further around, long fingers planted against Blaine's warm, t-shirt covered chest.

His own hips were also grinding now. It wasn't barely.

At all.

* * *

"_How many have you had?"_

_Blaine shot him a goofy smile in response to the question, looking into the plastic cup in his hand and shrugging his shoulders. "Not nearly enough?"_

_Sam took the cup from Blaine's hand and downed the iced tea and citrus flavored vodka concoction. He winced. "Is there any beer left?"_

_Shrugging again, Blaine seemed to sink even further into the couch in Finn's living room, if that was possible. "Check the fridge." He closed his eyes for a second, opening them once he noticed that the weight next to him suddenly disappeared. "Can you get me one if you find any?"_

"_Can you pretend not to have taken a bath in hand sanitizers if my mom sees you in the morning?"_

_Another one of those goofy smiles. He chuckled, tapping two fingers against his forehead and attempting a lazy salute. "Yes sir."_

"_Alright, champ." Sam couldn't do anything but smile back._

* * *

It went on like that for probably a good five minutes. Although any possible perspective of time that Sam might have had was completely lost on him, so he couldn't be quite sure. At least it went on until all of a sudden everything went completely still, following that unmistakable sound of a gasp from someone suddenly waking up from a very vivid dream.

Then, slowly and unsurely, it started again.

"Sam...?"

The sound of Blaine's voice somewhere in the space in front of him made him want to say something, but instead he let his hand cling a little tighter to the fabric covering the other's boy's chest in fear of what would come out of his mouth if he were to speak.

Sam brought his face closer to the exposed neck between the collar of Blaine's t-shirt and soft, unruly black hair. It smelled warm, and just like a secret he kept hidden under the very pillow upon which his head was resting at that very moment.

Although he guessed it wasn't really a secret.

Not anymore.

* * *

"_If we want Quinn to give us a ride to my place we have to leave now." It had seemed like forever until Sam finally had found Blaine bopping his head to the 80's music blasting from the speakers in the kitchen, some apparently fascinated cheerleader he might have had eyes for in an alternative time and space dimension twisting her feet in tune with the clearly inebriated teenager. _

"_Now?" Blaine almost looked disappointed._

"_Now."_

* * *

It was still dark outside, so it couldn't be morning. If he had to guess, it was probably around three.

There was a hand sprawled across his chest when he had woken up in the night, and just like that everything was a dream even though he wasn't dreaming any longer.

He whimpered softly in response to the hips moving behind him, not sure if that was what had woken him up in the first place or if in fact the culprit was the steady thump of a heavy heart beating against the space between his shoulders. It didn't really matter, because apparently his hips were moving as well.

At some point, once he was almost positive that Sam be awake, the still drunken state he was in let his hands travel down to the zipper of his currently uncomfortably tight jeans, opening them up just about enough to let a hand sneak in and lazily rub against the front of his underwear as unsteady breaths kept getting stuck in his throat. By the time the hand previously rubbing circles across his chest joined his, he had completely forgotten how to breathe.

Somewhere behind him, Sam was using his free hand to anything but smoothly unbutton his own jeans. Blaine used the sudden pause of friction to hike his further down, just below his hips before feeling a hand grab onto the back of them, pulling them down below the swell of his ass.

And then Sam was back, closer than ever before. Grinding, almost humping. Heavy, desperate breaths against the back of his neck, causing him to shudder. The way Sam irregularly took deep breaths through his nose and making tiny, appreciative noises as he smelled his neck was for some reason making Blaine almost achingly hard.

Seemingly in the exact same moment, Blaine turned onto his stomach as Sam settled on his knees right behind him, straddling the space just below his hips.

It was almost impossibly dark in the room. Grieving the loss of that terrifying yet completely blissful contact his hand had provided for until that moment, Sam snaked it into his own boxers as the other one carefully dragged a couple of ghostly fingers against the thin fabric on Blaine's right cheek.

Blaine had never been here before. Not like this, not with someone like that.

Not even close to having been anywhere at all with somebody he loved.

Someone like Sam.

He was coming closer now, having planted both of his hands on the bed to the sides of Blaine's body, boxers pulled down and erection impossibly close the still covered space between the cheeks of Blaine's ass.

The air between the four walls of the bedroom seemed to shake with each rushed, unsteady breath, with every creak of the box spring mattress. When Sam noticed a shaky hand work on the hem of the only pair of underwear in the room still decently covering anything, he sat back on his knees again and helped pull the offending fabric down with an equally shaky hand.

The room was so dark, it was difficult to see anything. But it wasn't difficult to feel. With a heart about to leap out of his throat, Sam reached a hand down to finally touch, leaving it there to stroke the soft skin up and down until he realized that his other hand had started to frantically work on his erection, spreading a cheek to the side and rubbing a dry thumb against what felt like a puckered entrance.

He had no idea what to do next.

But by the time it dawned on him that it didn't matter if he knew what to do or not, it was already too late because he was panting now, the result of all that hand jerking and grabbing manifesting itself in a sticky, white mess, pooling on the small of Blaine's back.

He closed his eyes, all of a sudden the feeling of soberness and the deepest of regrets washing over him in a drowning tidal wave. When he spoke, it didn't even sound like him.

"I'm sorry…"

Blaine rose on his elbows, the broken almost sob behind him waking him up from the dream he thought he was in and pulled his underwear up along with his jeans while trying to avoid the stickiness on his back. The sound of Sam's voice made it seem like the moment had gone, if it hadn't died completely.

"I'm gonna go home…" Sam stumbled off the bed, pulling underwear and jeans into a messy bundle of fabric around his hips.

Biting down on his bottom lip before he spoke, Blaine took a deep breath. "This is your house."

There was a moment in which the silence could have been sliced open with a knife. Sam kicked the door to his bathroom in frustration before locking himself away in it, proceeding to curse under his breath on the other side of the thin wall which didn't go unnoticed by the boy on the bed, who in turn dried himself off with the duvet before sitting down on the side of the bed, head in his hands.

By the time Sam emerged from the bathroom, Blaine was gone.

* * *

"_Shh!" Catching a handful of fabric on the back of Blaine's sweater, Sam barely managed to keep him from falling straight into the shoe rack in the darkness of his hallway. He shot him an annoyed look, secretly wishing he was having as much fun as his giggling friend. "Do you want everybody to wake up?"_

_Blaine brushed himself off once he was standing in an upright position in an attempt to sober up, trying on a serious expression for the first time that night. "Sorry…"_

"_Come on."_

_Blaine followed his friend up the stairs to Sam's bedroom, only shrugging the sweater off of his upper body before he climbed into bed jeans and all, following his friend's lead._

* * *

He could have left a maximum of 20 minutes ago. Because it can't have taken Sam any longer to stand under the scolding shower, trying to wash some off the guilt and shame away while simultaneously hoping that Blaine had gotten the hint and _left._

But when he stepped into his bedroom, window slightly ajar and exchanging any memories still lingering in the hot air he wondered why he cared where Blaine could have gone.

Not finding anything else to wear, he got dressed in the damning evidence of what he had been wearing before and ran down the stairs to kick his shoes on, seeing the front door stand unlocked before he almost burst out of it and into the night.

Because Blaine's house was at least an hour of walking away.

_20 minutes _he thought to himself, hoping that the other boy hadn't left right away and thanking his lucky stars when he spotted a tightly set of shoulders far, far down the road.

And because he couldn't live with himself for letting his by far more intoxicated friend walk down on dark streets all the way home in the middle of the night, he kept a safe distance while watching those shoulders occasionally almost falling into ditches and stumbling on unsteady feet for an hour, until he was walking down the same road back home again.

* * *

_There was usually that moment. The moment right before sleep, in which for a long time everything had made since._

_But only in those moments._

_Before sleep._

_They were how Sam's arm usually ended up resting safely on Blaine's waist. They were the times when it didn't matter that Blaine was gay and Sam allegedly straight but still best friends and people probably wouldn't get it but they didn't need to. Because they didn't know._

"_Good night, Blaine."_

_Didn't know, because they didn't see._

"_Good night, Sam."_

**_TBC_**


	8. Impossible

'What would people say?'

That was probably one of the more prominent questions pestering his tired brain. Everything would be fine if he just managed to keep these… _feelings_ inside of him under wraps and eventually settled down with a girl one day, when the time was right.

Except he couldn't keep it under wraps, apparently. Not when it came to Blaine.

He wondered if people could see what he'd done, just by looking at him. Because it felt like whatever the truth was it was written with permanent marker across his forehead, which was exactly why he managed to fake a cold and stay home until Friday to sit on his bed staring at the clock on his wall, hoping that if he prayed hard enough he would be able to turn back time.

To unsee, and to undo.

Little did he know that his efforts were pointless, because apparently time could only move in one direction and Blaine had come down with the 'flu' and wasn't in school, anyway.

By Thursday night his mother had figured that just like he used to do when he was a kid and overwhelmed by homework and falling behind, he was feigning excuses not to go to school and forced him out of the house the next morning.

Except this time, he wasn't falling behind.

Maybe he was just falling.

* * *

It had probably been one of the happiest and most terrifying things ever to happen to him. And the more he tried to make sense out of it, the less sense any of it made.

Sam.

The love of his life. Or at least that's what it felt like. The one who he never thought would be able to return any sort of feeling beyond the platonic 'I love you man's and the occasional arm thrown over his waist as they slept. The intimacy he cherished, but of which he'd also come to accept that he never would get any more of than what it was.

The one who always looked after him. The one he had the endless patience for to practically teach how to properly read and to write. The one who took.

And who gave, in return.

Sam. Who'd been panting heavily against the back of his neck as they moved together slowly, then faster. The first one with whom he'd felt safe enough to do anything with, without feeling the need to nervously throw up afterwards because other people didn't know him. Nobody knew Blaine like he did.

With whom it had been over too soon. Before whatever it was that was supposed to happen had barely even begun, and now he had an eerie feeling that he'd never get to be there again.

"Is Sam here today?"

Tina twirled her purple pen around in her hand, sort of studying the work sheet in front of her. "I don't know. He hasn't been here all week."

"Oh." Nodding to himself, Blaine cleared his throat and jotted down the answer to question number three.

"Don't you two talk every day?" Tina gave him a look before glancing over at his paper to copy his answer. "Or like, twice every hour…"

They used to. But lately, they just sort of didn't.

And since the weekend, they hadn't spoken at all.

"Sam hasn't had any credit on his phone, so…-"

"-what did you get for question two?"

Blaine pushed his paper over to her for a better view, just about to object to her copying his answers word for word when the door to the classroom opened.

Pulling the paper completely out of Blaine's hands, she continued to study what he had written down before throwing an uninterested glance at the door. "And in walked the answer to your previous question."

Blain swallowed the lump suddenly stuck in his throat as Sam snuck through the door and into the classroom, taking a seat at the very front. He wasn't sure if he'd seen him sitting by the back row or not, because his eyes had mostly been focusing on the floor as he'd walked in.

The rest of the hour seemed to drag on for forever.

Which was odd, because once it was over Blaine still felt like forever hadn't given him enough time.

* * *

"Sam… Do you have a minute?"

The taller boy eventually stopped walking.

"I just think… maybe we should talk?"

Eventually, he also turned around. "Talk about what?"

Blaine had secretly hoped he wouldn't need to spell anything out for him. "Uhm. I mean, we haven't spoken since last weekend and now it's Friday, so I thought-"

"-Listen, Blaine… I don't care what you get up to when you go out with Sebastian or whatever and I'm the last person in the world to judge you, but I'd prefer it if you wouldn't get completely wasted and feel me up just 'cause we happen to sleep on the same bed."

"Oh..." He had been a little fuzzy on the details on the before and after, because he hadn't exactly been sober at the time but for some reason the memory in his head of what had happened seemed crystal clear. "I…"

"I just think we need some space. Because I don't want to have to worry about you grabbing my junk when you think I'm asleep."

The seemingly crystal clear memory just seemed to shatter in his brain upon it trying to process the words he'd just heard, tiny shards scratching the insides of his skull as he tried to piece them together again.

Eventually, he managed to. "I didn't." It was the absolute worst thing he'd ever been accused of. By the last person in the world he thought would ever accuse him of _anything._ "I didn't do that. And you weren't asleep."

"Please…" Sam huffed in response, for the first time in his life taking advantage of his height to avoid looking into his shorter friend's eyes.

"I didn't." Taking a step backwards in the crowded hallway, Blaine found it difficult to believe the words he was hearing. "You did."

If the look Sam had shot him in between the seconds of staring at his shoes and looking at the aisle of lockers to his right wasn't a warning, he didn't know what it was.

But Blaine didn't really care. He just shook his head, keeping his voice as calm and low as he could allow himself to. "You did…" Another step back, a frown appearing on his face in the process. "You're disgusting."

Sam huffed again, shaking his head in return. "I'm glad we can agree on something then, because to be honest you disgust me too."

He could feel a storm building up inside him, cold unforgiving winds shaking up whatever it was that he thought the truth might be. And it wasn't just the memory that he had trouble keeping together. Somewhere deep inside his chest he could feel his heart shatter into a million little pieces, falling out on the floor between them.

Too many too count.

Impossible to puzzle together again.

They cut through the soles of his shoes as he walked over them, blood gushing through the open wounds at the bottom of his feet making the two steps towards Sam just as impossible to cross.

But somehow, he did. And once he was there, he was too afraid to say anything because he knew the storm would inevitably grab onto whatever words he'd manage to spit out and take them far, far away. So far, he'd never be able to take them back.

So instead, he said nothing.

Nothing, until Sam walked away and for the first time in two years, Blaine suddenly had the feeling that no one looked after him any longer.

* * *

Sometimes, when you truly love someone, you have to let them go.

Or rather, sometimes when you're pathetically trying to keep your head above water in that thing that isn't just a river in Egypt you have to hold that person under the surface until they stop breathing in order to have something to float on.

Sam had heard somewhere that if you kill a person and then throw the body into a lake or something, it would stay afloat because there would still be water in their lungs, the evidence clear as day for anyone to see. But if you drown them, their lungs would fill up with water and keep the body hidden, deep down and far away from prying eyes. It might seem like the less humane option, but technically it was probably the smartest.

He had to let him go, to save himself from whatever it was that he was so terrified of.

And if he'd been falling before, by now he had officially crashed.

_**TBC**_


	9. Still on the line

"So like, nobody knows who this guy is but when he takes off his mask all of a sudden everyone's like 'Oh, Hi Bruce?'"

Blaine's mouth fell wearily open as he gave Sebastian a tired look. "Well, he's Batman so his identity is secret."

"But all he does to hide it is put on some stupid cape and mask and sound like he just smoked ten packs of cigarettes in one sitting?"

It was becoming apparent that Sebastian just didn't _get it,_ and Blaine was starting to wonder why he even bothered.

"Anyway." The taller teen stood up from the comfy chair in the corner of Blaine's bedroom. "We've been doing whatever this is…" Gesturing a hand towards the pile of magazines spread around over Blaine's bed, Sebastian threw a glance out on the setting sun through the spotless window. "…for far, far too long-"

"-It's literally been four minutes since we got here…-"

"-And I need a drink. Now where do your folks store their liquor?"

Before Blaine had a chance to scramble himself off the bed, Sebastian was already out of the door and on his way down the stairs. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

"What? I thought they were out of town."

And in all honesty Blaine couldn't really argue with that logic.

It didn't take long for Sebastian to find the liquor cabinet behind dark mahogany in a faraway corner of the living room. Before opening the bottle of rum in his hands, he turned around to look at Blaine who'd finally caught up with him. "Do you seriously have a good reason not to live a little?"

'No', Blaine thought to himself as he grabbed the liquid contained in dark, brown glass after having it pushed against his chest. 'No.' But he could think of two very good reasons to at least attempt to.

For one, his parents were actually out of town and he was literally left to his own devices for another three days.

The second reason he didn't really want to think about, but it had something to do with his best friend not speaking to him for a week and simultaneously leaving him completely shattered as a result of the last conversation they actually did have.

He unscrewed the cap and took a swig, only to have the bottle ripped out of his hands as the liquid traveled down his stinging throat.

"Oh, come on Blaine. Were you raised by wolves or something?"

Tiny little drops of tears were starting to form in his eyes as a result to the alcohol leaving two blushing cheeks on his face, finally spotting Sebastian throwing one of his signature smirks over his shoulder as he disappeared into the kitchen.

"Don't you have some glasses and ice or something…"

* * *

The sky had been almost painfully pink about ten minutes ago. But just like that, grey clouds gathered and it had started to rain. Somewhere in the room the radio was playing some Katy Perry song he'd never intentionally listened to, yet somehow he seemed to know every single word to it as he couldn't help but sing along in his head.

Sam wondered what Blaine was up to.

At some point the music changed, and an old song he'd heard a million times before as a child sitting in the backseat of his parents' Volkswagen softly sang through the speakers. And he hadn't even noticed, until Andy Williams started to sing.

_I am a lineman for the county  
And I drive the main road  
Searching in the sun for another overload_

They had sold the car once they were three kids, instead of one. It was a little too small for such a big family, not to mention too tired and too old. Forest green but by the time he was old enough to even start to remember, the paint had already started to peel and to fade into some kind of murky grey.

Kind of like the color of the sky right now.

_I hear you singing in the wire  
I can hear you through the whine  
And the Wichita lineman  
is still on the line_

He'd been a really happy child. Carefree when they had money, stoic when they didn't and grateful once they had it again.

But never in his life had he really felt _different._ Or even forced to feel that way.

Sam Evans; your average white, American teenager from an unbroken, working class home. Grades slightly below and height, arguably above. Maybe he'd never felt different, because all his life people had always pointed out to him how normal he was.

_I need you more than want you  
And I want you for all time_

_And the Wichita lineman  
is still on the line_

While regret was something lying weary on his mind for the past two weeks, there was one part of it he just couldn't shake off no matter how hard he tried. He would undo it all if only he could, but at the same time he couldn't help but regret that he'd never given him a kiss.

He hadn't even tried, and deep down it was almost the only thing he really, really wanted to do. But he hadn't touched his hair; hadn't even looked him in the eye.

And he hadn't given him a kiss.

_I need you more than want you  
And I want you for all time_

_And the Wichita lineman  
is still on the line_

He should probably not be sitting alone in his room.

* * *

Sebastian stretched his back against the floor of Blaine's bedroom, long limbs splayed across the polished wooden parquet. "I want to go dancing."

Giggling at nothing in particular, Blaine rolled onto his stomach to rest his head on the crossed arms beneath him. "We can't go anywhere, we're wasted. Besides, it's raining."

"Ever heard of a little thing called a cab, Anderson?"

Blaine hummed in response, sort of contemplating the option in his head as Sebastian pulled himself off the floor and stumbled towards his phone on the night stand.

"I need a cigarette."

"You can't smoke here." It was probably time to get up.

Sebastian tapped away on his phone and reached for something in his pocket. "Which is exactly why we're going out." Speaking through a cigarette dangling from his lips, he looked at the shorter teen now sitting on the floor. "Who's having a party tonight?"

* * *

The tacky disco light danced across the walls of Finn's living room as they walked in. Other than that, it was pretty much too dark to really see much of anything. It hadn't dawned on Blaine that Sebastian wasn't exactly popular among his group of friends until they'd arrived, but figured if they'd lay low it shouldn't be an issue.

That was, until he saw Sam practically brooding in a corner while talking to some jock-looking types.

"It looks like the man of your dreams is here as well." Grabbing two beers from a bucket of ice on the dining table, Sebastian shoved one towards Blaine who didn't have an option but to take it.

"Keep your voice down..! And he's not the 'man of my dreams…'"

"I suppose that's why you've turned too shy to even give him the time of day for the last couple of weeks?"

"Shut up… And I'm not 'shy', you jerk."

Sebastian huffed in response, winking in Sam's general direction once he realized they'd been spotted. "Then why am I all of a sudden operating as some kind of nerd-dome replacement therapy?"

Shaking his head in frustration, Blaine downed almost half of his beer in one go. "Does everything have to have a reason? Maybe sometimes people just drift apart."

"Not when you're hopelessly crushing on your super-hot best friend-"

"-What the hell is this?"

Even though he'd barely heard Sam's voice in the past week, the memory of what it sounded like still rang fresh in Blaine's mind. Slowly, he turned around. "Sam…"

"Why is he here?"

Sebastian splayed a hand across his chest upon realizing that the question was obviously referring to his presence. "Who? Moi?"

Sam visibly had problems containing his anger. "Wipe that stupid smile off your sorry face."

Finally, Blaine found enough air to speak in the all too crowded room. "Nobody else is bothered so why do you care if Sebastian is here or not?"

Nostrils were flaring now, Sam's chest practically heaving up and down in bouts of shallow, quick breaths. He looked at Sebastian, who couldn't help but blatantly smirk knowingly at the blonde teen. That was until Sam pressed his eyes tightly shut for a moment, only to focus them on Blaine once he opened them up again. There was a darkness there that the shorter teen had never seen before.

"You told him."

Blaine's eyes turned as wide as saucers as the accusation started to settle in, shaking his head in denial. "No, no. I didn't, I swear."

"Tell me what?" The smirk had turned into an obnoxious grin by now. But in an instance of exception, it quickly faded because Sam was stepping closer to Blaine now, a big hand grabbing onto a buttoned up collar. "Whoa, relax dude."

Tearing his attention from Blaine's surprisingly calm face, Sam shook his head at Sebastian. "Don't fucking call me dude, you…-"

"-Faggot? Queer? Or maybe you're more of a 'fairy'-kind of guy?"

And that was enough to make Sam let go of Blaine completely.

Apparently, it was also all it took to result in Sebastian getting his face socked in.

_**TBC**_


	10. My pride

The sound of ice swirling around in a tall glass of ice tea brought Blaine back to the world of the living, as he stretched out his back on one of the sun chairs in his backyard. He knocked the shades down a notch on his nose, taking a look at his friend fishing out an ice cube to hold it against his left eye. "How's your face?"

"Fantastic."

The irony wasn't lost on him.

"Actually, it's not fantastic. It just happens to be my main asset. Other than my body, of course…"

It was an exceptionally hot Saturday morning. Reclining back, Blaine took a sip from his own glass. "It's not so bad."

"Not so bad my ass… You really need to fix the leash on that so called 'best friend' of yours."

Blaine tried to ignore that last part. "Lots of guys think black eyes are hot."

Fixing his favorite pair of Ray-Bans on his own face with as little interference with his eye as possible, Sebastian reclined as well. "You're right. Maybe I could spin this one in my favor somehow…"

Blaine chuckled, a hint relief starting to settle in.

But like most good things in Blaine's life, it didn't last too long.

"Care to tell me what the hell all that was about, anyway?"

Shrugging, the shorter teen rolled up the sleeves on his t-shirt to his shoulders. "I think he just really doesn't like you."

"He said you'd 'told me' something, and unless it's some banal, completely useless comic-book related type of top-secret trivia that I couldn't care less about, I think I deserve to know why I got my face punched in."

He shrugged again. "You got your face punched in because he doesn't like you, and because you accused him of being a homophobe."

Sebastian was sitting up straight now, focusing on the bottom of his glass in search of more ice cubes. "Perhaps I'm recalling the sequence of events differently, but did you not notice him practically threaten you?"

Blaine huffed in response. "He didn't threaten me." He thought of that darkness in Sam's eyes from the night before. He'd barely recognized him and while he'd probably never admit it to a soul, he'd actually felt almost scared upon seeing it. Upon Sam grabbing onto the front of his collar, pulling him close.

And not for any of the reasons that frequently visited him in his lonely sleep.

"He didn't threaten me."

Sebastian lit the cigarette he'd discreetly slipped between his lips, blatantly ignoring the annoyed look Blaine just shot him. "Repeating it to yourself makes it sound super-true, by the way."

They laid there in silence for a while, only interrupted by Blaine loudly moaning in objection to Sebastian flicking the butt of his cigarette across the neat, perfectly green lawn. Blaine wasn't quite sure if he'd fallen asleep or not when Sebastian finally spoke again, voice softer than before.

"They're always gonna stay straight, Blaine."

Maybe, if he kept his eyes closed underneath the shades and tried not to move, Sebastian would think he was actually sleeping.

"Everybody wants to experiment at some point so don't get your hopes up, is all I'm saying."

He hoped the hitched, shallow breathing didn't give him away.

"That's all."

* * *

"Hey, Sam. I have a question for you."

His right hand was still throbbing as he dragged his feet into the kitchen, finding his almost annoyingly chipper mother standing in the way between him and the refrigerator containing a very appealing bottle of orange juice.

He shrugged, pulling the robe tighter around his body. "Shoot."

Mrs. Evans presented a familiar a looking short stack of papers on the kitchen island. "I know I usually know how to read and all, but for some reason this D is looking an awful lot like an F to me so I was hoping you could clarify."

Sam sighed heavily, turning around to take the detour around the kitchen island to finally get to the cool bottle of juice.

"What's going on, Sam?"

He shrugged, taking a swig directly from the bottle.

"Didn't Blaine help you study? I just find it odd, because you haven't failed as much as a pop-quiz in the last two years and-"

"-maybe he doesn't have time to sit around and read the textbooks back to me every afternoon, mom." The bottle landed on the counter a little harder than necessary.

She studied him for a moment, before continuing. "Where is Blaine, anyway? Wasn't he supposed to stay here this weekend when his parents went away?"

"How should I know?" Deep down he knew the irritation in his voice must seem like a blaring warning bell, so he tried to take a deep breath before continuing. "He's with Sebastian, or something…"

"Oh." Mrs. Evans nodded to herself, seemingly lost in thought for a minute. She recognized the name, from somewhere. "Is Blaine together with this guy, or…?"

"I don't know..!" All of a sudden it was as if all that pride or whatever the hell it was didn't matter one, tiny little bit because Sam was sinking down on a bar stool by the kitchen island now, not knowing what to do besides resting his head in his hands, feeling his voice crack when he spoke. "I don't know…"

"Oh, honey…"

He felt his mother somewhere behind his back, embracing him and stroking the occasional strands of hair from his forehead as he buried his face in his arms.

"I know…. I know."

In reality, she didn't really know anything. At least not more than any mother, who'd occasionally shot a curious glance at her sleeping son's arm thrown around his best friend as she'd silently sneak in on Sunday mornings to get the laundry because like a lot of teenage sons, hers was completely useless at finding the laundry room by himself even if she were to hand him a map and a compass.

"I know…."

And even though Sam spent far too many hours of the day wondering what it would be like to hold Blaine, just for a couple of minutes on that particular Saturday morning it felt really good to simply be held for a change.

* * *

At some point they'd started tipping rum into their glasses in the backyard, ice cubes clinking against each other into the early evening. Sebastian had started to philosophize on whether or not he'd be able to get laid with his new shiner, and Blaine had smoked almost half a cigarette by the time their lazy buzz turned into restlessness.

"Let's go dancing."

It felt like Blaine had heard Sebastian say those words a thousand times before.

On second thought, he probably had.

* * *

He'd been driving around aimlessly for a while, before realizing he'd pulled into the driveway of Blaine's home.

There were no lights on inside as far as he could see, but that didn't keep him from climbing out of the driver's seat to make his way to the front door, in front of which he stood for a minute before bringing his throbbing hand against the thick wood to knock.

When there was nobody there to answer the door, Sam reached into his pocket to dig out his phone.

No missed calls.

He'd tried Blaine's phone twice already even though he had no clue whatsoever of what he'd say, were the other boy to actually answer his calls.

But evidently he didn't need to worry about that, because Blaine hadn't.

And the truth was that Sam had run out of second chances a long time ago.

* * *

"Could you take off your shades now…?"

Sebastian defiantly pulled the Ray-Bans off his freshly tanned face, hooking them into the front collar of his t-shirt. The bruise was barely visibly at night. "Fine."

"It's just, that's the fourth guy asking if we sell drugs and I feel like it might be the whole 'sunglasses in the night club'-thing that's giving off that kind of vibe."

Sebastian swirled around the contents of his highball glass. "Here I was thinking it was just a refreshing way to meet new people."

Scandals wasn't exactly packed yet.

"Oh my god, I love this song!"

Sebastian moaned in annoyance upon hearing Peter Gabriel begin to belt out the first verse of 'In Your Eyes' through the speakers. "I hate this song…"

However the annoyance was by no means contagious, because Blaine was bopping his head to the music now, grabbing onto Sebastian's hands and actually succeeding in dragging him along out on the dance floor. "_Love, I get so lost, sometimes. Days pass, and this emptiness fills my heart…"_

"Please stop singing along."

Blaine blatantly ignored his friend's request, feeling the corners of his mouth involuntarily pull even further up into a wide smile because Sebastian was shaking his head, not able to suppress the smile spreading on his face as he let Blaine lead them on the dance floor.

"_When I want to run away, I drive off in my car… But whichever way I go I come back to the place you are…"_

A disco ball hung somewhere in the air above them, casting tiny little sparkles of reflection against the shadows of strangers all joined on the limited space that made up the small club. Some people knew each other well, and some were complete strangers by the start of the evening but towards the end, most likely they'd become more aquatinted with each other than most people who see one another almost every day.

"You have got to be kidding me…"

Blaine had to turn around at that, because there weren't a lot of things in the world that could make Sebastian gasp in exasperation.

"Of all the fucking gay joints in town, he had to walk into mine."

Somewhere, by the foggy entrance to the club suddenly Sam stood close enough to the wall without touching it, hands nervously tucked deep into the pockets of his jeans as he tried and failed to find somebody in the sea of men.

Instantly, Blaine knew he'd come looking for him.

"He better have a real good fucking reason to be here, that better be a check in his pocket to cover any eventual plastic surgery I may or may not require in the future as a result of that Neanderthal."

Blaine could hear Sebastian going off on a tangent somewhere in the background, but he couldn't really hear what he was saying because Sam's eyes had locked with his now and while Blaine seemed rooted to the floor Sam was walking towards him, steady steps making his way even tough an uncertainty seemed to plague his eyes.

And then, almost an eternity later Sam was standing there, right in front of him.

"Blaine…"

It was all too clear to Blaine that his friend knew exactly what he wanted to say, but didn't have a clue of how to say it.

"I'm sorry."

The words instantly caused a stinging in his eyes, not realizing until that very moment how badly he'd longed to hear them come out of Sam's mouth.

"Can you forgive me?"

Searching deep down from within himself, he tried to find an answer to the question only to come up with the truth. "I don't know."

_Without a noise  
Without my pride  
I reach out from the inside_

Sam nodded, a shaky breath escaping while he looked down on his feet not realizing until that moment just how difficult that would be to hear. He looked up. "Can I kiss you?"

Nodding, almost instantly, Blaine stepped a tiny bit closer and then there they were, just like he'd wished to be an endless amount of times before. "Yes."

Logistically speaking it was easier said than done, with Sam's neck craning down as far as possible without having to actually bend his knees while Blaine did his best to stand on his tippy toes without risking the loss of balance which didn't really work but at the same time it didn't really matter, because before he swayed to the side Sam was holding him, and Blaine was holding onto Sam.

The music kept blasting through the speakers while the surrounding world seemed to move in slow motion and somewhere in the background, Sebastian was practically ripping his hair out in disbelief.

But the only thing running though Sam's head, was the fact that if he were to die the very next day at least he'd gotten to do one of the only things that could make him die a happy, young man.

_**TBC**_


	11. Closer

_Notes: Once again I'd just like to thank everyone, each and every review has a special place in my heart!_

* * *

They hadn't said much else.

And the decision to get into Sam's car and drive to Blaine's house was basically a mutual, unspoken agreement because for once Sam was sober, and Blaine wasn't too drunk not to know what he was doing even though technically, he still didn't have a clue.

The taller teen turned the car key, before staring down at his hands in his lap and suddenly the silence was almost unbearable.

Blaine cleared his throat. "Should we go inside?"

A nod. The palms of his hands turned upwards, and for a moment he wished there was enough light in the car from the dim streetlights outside so he could at least attempt to let his eyes study the calloused lines there to maybe, just maybe give him some kind of hint of what the near future might have in store for him.

But just like that, one second later he couldn't care less because Blaine's hand was resting in his.

"Let's go."

When Sam thinks back on the almost-conversation held in his car that night, he's pretty sure he's the one who said those last few words.

* * *

The house was empty, so maybe they didn't really need to carefully kick off their shoes in the hallway and silently sneak upstairs into Blaine's room right away but for some reason they did, anyway.

And once they were there, Sam realized it had been far too long since their last and very first kiss under the dancing lights of a disco-ball. So they kissed, again, and despite everything Sam had felt up until just about some point that very day, never in his life had he ever kissed somebody so shamelessly before.

The noise coming from somewhere inside Blaine's throat was almost too much to bear when Sam's hands traveled down his sides, hooking two fingers into the loops on his jeans and rested a hot forehead against an equally hot one.

When Sam opened up his mouth to speak, barely audibly, they were practically breathing the very same air.

"Blaine…"

"Yeah?"

There was no follow-up, really, because seconds after they tumbled onto the crisp sheets on top of Blaine's neatly made bed. Although there was nothing neat about it, anymore. At some point throughout the desperate tumbling on the bed, shirts had come off and both their jeans were unbuttoned.

Blaine closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he let a nervous hand rest on Sam's hip, opening them up just for a second to see Sam looking at him, nodding and apparently, that was the final approval necessary for both of them to completely shed the rest of their clothes.

Under the protective shield of rumbled covers, Sam kissed Blaine deeply while letting a hand travel up and down his spine to finally rest on the small of his back. Taking a short break from sucking on Sam's bottom lip for a moment, Blaine let out shaky shudder and then the hand travelled further down. Tentatively grabbing, squeezing.

"Is this Ok?"

Blaine would have looked into those hopeful eyes, if only he weren't too busy keeping his own ridiculously tightly shut. "Yes…" He buried his face somewhere in the space above Sam's collarbone and tried to focus on not forgetting how to breathe.

Because it was so much more than 'ok.'

When Sam leaned back slightly to gently nudge a damp shoulder, Blaine leaned back against the pillows and let the taller teen settle in the space between his legs. It took a while to swallow the lump suddenly stuck in his throat, trying his best to keep his voice from cracking when he spoke.

"Is it going to hurt..?"

Sam looked down and thought about how to answer the question, thinking it was a little funny yet endearing that Blaine should ask him about something he most likely had way more knowledge about than him. He thought of the fact that if Blaine asked him this, he apparently wasn't so sure himself which must mean he'd never done it before. He thought about how little it must hurt, compared to all the things Sam so selfishly had put him through recently.

Trying on a soft smile, he let a thumb stroke along a flushing cheek as he looked down at the boy he loved, answering the question as good as he could. "Not too bad."

And then Blaine was smiling back at him, letting out a sigh of relief as he nodded. "Ok." Turning to his side as far as he could, he fiddled with the first drawer on his nightstand and proceeded to pull out a bottle of lube and a pack of condoms, the seal unbroken. A deep breath, another "Ok."

Luckily for both of them, Sam wasn't completely clueless any longer and once he'd gotten over the initial shock of seeing the items appearing on top of the sheet next to them, he carefully popped open the cap on the bottle and started to coat a finger.

It wasn't exactly uncomfortable at first. Just a little strange and incredibly exciting. When Blaine realized he'd been furiously breathing through his nose anyway, he leaned up as far as he could to catch Sam's lips in a messy kiss as the other teen worked his fingers in and out somewhere in the heat between them. He pulled his knees closer towards his body, relishing in the sensations creeping through his every cell as well as in the fact that it was Sam right above him, and not some guy pushing him against a dirty wall in one of the stalls of a place frequently haunting his dreams as well as his nightmares.

He kept his eyes closed now, not finding it too necessary to remind himself that it all wasn't in fact a dream because last time he'd been on a bed with this person knowing it was too good to be true, the wakeup had been the hardest. Yet he managed to find and open the little box somewhere to his left with a searching hand, eventually pulling out a thin little wrapper and closing his fingers around it almost as tight as his eyelids were shut.

That was, until he felt long fingers close around his before gently prying them open to get what was lying in the palm of his hand, letting his eyes open in the process. With a tentative gaze he observed Sam open the wrapper and slip the condom onto himself, before settling closer on his knees between Blaine's legs to pull him closer.

He whimpered at first, not sure if Sam leaned down to kiss him in that exact moment as a distraction or because he felt like it but for whatever reason, it worked. The first few tentative thrusts turned a little faster, and even in the darkness of the room Sam tried to pay close attention to Blaine's face just in case he were to go to fast or too deep.

Even with his breath stuck high in his throat, Blaine kept nodding in reassurance every now and then between kisses and heavy panting, and the fact that Sam couldn't help but smile that lovely smile at him each time made all the strain worth it.

Blaine wasn't quite sure what was going on, but as Sam found it harder to restrain his movements something happened inside of him that shot shivers through his spine each time and since he was far from complaining, Sam didn't stop.

"Oh, god…" He threw his head back against the pillow and as he did, Sam couldn't resist leaning down to shamelessly suck and to taste the unabashedly exposed skin. Two hands entwined on top on wrinkled sheets and then Blaine panted louder than before, his whole body almost trembling as he tried and failed to catch his breath, stomach sprinkled in sticky white. The sound he made alone was enough for Sam to thrust one final time before riding it out, eventually coming down to rest his heavy head on top of Blaine's heaving chest.

Their hands still hadn't let go when Sam felt Blaine's other arm circle around his upper back, holding him close as his breathing was starting to return to normal.

"Please don't leave…"

The sound of Blaine's voice breaking at the last word was enough to make Sam's eyes water, squeezing his hand in reassurance because at the time he didn't think he could trust his voice enough to speak.

Eventually, they had to part if not only to get cleaned up and find their underwear somewhere in the heap of clothes by the foot of the bed. Sam disappeared into the bathroom down the hall for a moment, and didn't hesitate once as he crept underneath the covers to hug the sleepy boy who'd visibly been worried the whole three minutes he'd been gone.

Blaine turned to his side and almost expected as much as he was surprised by the presence of Sam's warm chest immediately pressing against his back.

"You know technically, it was you who left last time…"

Blaine chuckled in response to words softly spoken into the back of his shoulder, elbowing Sam in the ribs as he did. "Shut up…"

And this time, even if his eyes were wet he couldn't help but speak the words waiting almost patiently on his tongue. "I'm sorry, Blaine." A shaky breath, and then Sam's mouth came close right behind his ear, words spoken softly and unafraid. "I followed you the whole way home that night. Didn't want you to walk alone."

It was almost as if Blaine's heart stopped beating for a second, as he could feel the clouds behind his eyes instantly grow heavier and weary. He took a deep breath before he spoke, casting his eyes downward. "Don't lie to me."

"I'll never lie to you again."

"Ok." Nodding, knowing somehow that those were the truest words he'd ever heard and would probably ever hear again, Blaine closed his eyes. "Then I forgive you."

_**TBC**_


	12. Where

_Notes: The final chapter has arrived! Once again I want to thank everyone for reading and for having patience, and say that writing this story has been a joy. Much love!_

* * *

On the first day, a little over two years ago he'd still had some bruising around his left eye as well as a cut along the side of his healing nose, because the plaster had fallen off at some point on his way to the new school. The doctor had said it might look a little uneven after the swelling had gone down, and he could already see that it was practically crooked, right there, in the middle of his face.

He spent a lot of time worrying about how ugly he'd become.

When the doctor said a plastic surgeon could correct it with a simple procedure, his dad had coughed something about his son not having any nose jobs and ever since then, they'd never discussed it again.

But that didn't mean that Blaine didn't think about it. All the time.

About a night that was supposed to have been a good time. About a boy who he wasn't even necessarily interested in, but who he'd still said yes to and maybe even blushed a little when asked if he wanted to go with him.

About how warm he'd felt inside, when a nervous hand had slipped into his as they walked out the doors of the school to the sound of generic pop music escaping through the halls because it was the first hand ever to hold onto his.

And sometimes, when he looked into the mirror with an involuntary frown on his face at how nobody would probably ever want to hold it again, he thought about how cold it got when the hand had slipped away.

* * *

"Ladies. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

The sarcasm in Sebastian's voice wasn't exactly subtle as he stood in the doorway to his dorm, impatiently regarding the sight of his friend and not-so-close acquaintance disturbing him from his Sunday noon beauty sleep.

Sam winced at the sight, noting that the black eye was significantly more protruding in the light of day when someone impatiently bumped his shoulder.

"Tell him…" Blaine urged.

The blond teen cleared his throat. "Sebastian, I wanted to apologize…"

"For…?-" An encouraging nod almost shook the stale, gelled curls loose from their iron hold.

"-For punching you. In the face. I was… dealing with some stuff and I didn't mean to take it out on you."

"Huh." Sebastian nodded in impressed approval, tapping a slipper clad foot against the doorframe. "Apology accepted."

"Uhm, Ok? Thanks."

"It's cool. Where are you watching the game next weekend?"

Blaine blinked, stepping to the side to look up at the two tall boys all of a sudden chatting casually in the hallway about football with a dumbfounded expression on his face, as he unzipped the front of the oversized sweatshirt he was wearing.

Because maybe he was a little overdressed for the warm, spring Sunday noon slowly but surely defrosting Ohio under a clear blue sky, but apparently in hell degrees were quickly falling to zero and below.

* * *

Blaine had simply asked one thing of him. "Just tell him you're sorry."

"_Do you have any idea how few other out, gay guys there are around here?"_

And apparently, it wasn't even easier said than done.

In the early evening, he had no idea where he'd been for the last couple of weeks if not even months, and he wished somebody could shake his shoulders and tell him where the hell he was going because in all honesty, he didn't have a clue. But for some reason, for the first time in forever he wasn't scared of where this place was, because somehow he knew just who'd be right there with him once he'd get there.

And even though in that moment, there was no place he'd rather be but right there next to him, he knew that there was someplace else he needed to be.

A knock, and what felt like an eternity.

And then the door opened.

"Sam?"

"Hi… Can I come in?"

"Of course. Of course you can."

"So. How are you?"

Brittany looked at the hallway floor, because the sight of the look in Sam's eyes alone was enough to make the tightest set of lips tremble. "I'm good. Are you Ok?" Almost hesitantly, she looked up again.

Sam laughed nervously, scratching his head as he shook it. "Believe it or not, I'm a lot better than I've been in a really long time."

Instantly knowing, sparkling eyes filled up with foggy tears even though her mouth was smiling. "That makes me happy." It was now her time to let out a shaky, nervous laugh, fiddling with the charm bracelet clinging onto a freckled wrist before a warm hand gently grabbed onto it. Her eyes focused on the thumb brushing against the polished piece of silver making out the shape of half a heart. "Santana said she's looking into moving out of the dorm and getting a bigger place next year. For two."

He smiled, the action causing enough movement on his face to let an apparently there tear fall down on his left cheek. "That makes me happy, too." And then, all he felt was the warm presence of the body of a dancer all around him, slim arms embracing the shoulders aching from having been carrying around so much for such a long time just to finally have let it go.

"You're just like me." The strangled noise came from somewhere next to his right year, even though it sounded like it was far away. "But there's nothing wrong with us, I promise."

"I know." He said. "Or at least, I'm trying to learn."

She leaned back a little, just enough to be able to look into his eyes. "We just love too much." A shrug, and then the first tearstained laugh he'd heard in far too long that wasn't nervous in even the slightest of ways.

"_Probably too much for this world."_

"But why in the world would that be wrong?"

* * *

"Don't stop…"

As much as he wished he'd never need to, Sam was afraid he wouldn't be able to last much longer.

So instead he leaned closer, his chest flush against the heat radiating from Blaine's back as he reached a hand around and soon, he didn't need to last anymore.

The breaths of heaving chests eventually returned to normal, at which point they swiftly cleaned up the evidence of what had just happened just in case _someone_ were to sneak in during the early morning hours to get the hamper of laundry standing in the corner.

"Your mom looked at me funny during dinner."

Sam chuckled, grabbing onto Blaine's hand resting on top of the covers.

"Do you think she knows?"

"I don't know." The taller teen shrugged. "Probably. She knows everything."

Nodding, Blaine turned his head carefully as concerned eyes searched for Sam's face in the darkness of the room without much success. "Does it bother you?"

"Nah." Just in time for the thick cloud obstructing the moon somewhere in the sky outside the window to finally move along, Sam's eyes fell into and got lost in sparkling, moonlit ones.

The shadow dancing along the side of his face resting on top of the pillow highlighted a slightly crooked nose that Sam hadn't noticed since the first time he'd seen him because at the time, it had been covered by a nasty cut. He brought a hand up, his thumb gently stroking down a barely noticeably bent bridge. "You're perfect."

Chuckling at the confession, Blaine shook his head free as he looked down. "I thought you wouldn't lie to me again."

"I'm not."

He nodded in response, letting the words sink in as he was preparing to open his mouth to say something not even remotely close to the words that fell out as he raised his head and looked into Sam's eyes. "Thank you."

The window was wide open, letting in an occasional cool spring breeze lowering the temperature of the room and even though apparently hell had frozen over, in his chest Blaine couldn't feel anything but warm.

He sighed, curling up closer to lay his head on top of Sam's naked chest. "Where the hell have you been all this time..?"

"_I just think, if I put myself out there maybe I'll, you know…. Meet someone."_

_Sam looked down for a moment, and if Blaine didn't have a hunch of just how much their friendship meant to both of them he'd think the other boy almost seemed a little jealous. "I think you're looking in the wrong place, Blaine."_

"_Then just exactly where would you suggest I look?"_

"Right here, I guess." Sam chuckled, letting a heavy arm circle around Blaine's shoulders and leaning down to leave a kiss, soft and sweet on the top of a head of curly hair before turning a little somber. Closing his eyes, he took in the scent Blaine and sleep and freshly washed sheets. He held him just a little tighter than before, a minute away from drifting off to dreams that, for once in his life, couldn't even compare to that day and all of a sudden it was as if he finally knew where he was going.

"At least that's where I'll be."

_**THE END**_


End file.
